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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 4963756" data-attributes="member: 59506">I agree completely with Mesh Hong and keterys. D&D is a cooperative game. There is no “Winner”. Successes come from accomplishing goals, both individual and group, but overall it’s a group effort. A character on his own in a typical D&D world, won’t live very long. Lennon and McCartney were right, “I get by with a little help from my friends”. Because of this, I view XP awards as group awards only. Everyone progresses at the same rate. This keeps the party power level consistent throughout the group, and encourages group participation over individual achievement. XP signifies the Experience a character gains as they learn and progress. In the real world, experience is gained by doing, observing, and most often by making mistakes. IMO, Ticking off accomplishments or filling squares is counter to, and unduly limiting to, how experience is actually acquired. You won't get players "roleplaying" better, you'll get players concentrating on "filling squares". But, there still needs to be a mechanic to encourage good game play and to reward acts of heroism and sacrifice/selflessness. I prefer to do this with individual awards that have a more immediate and tangible effect – specifically, extra action points. Extra Healing Surges can have the unwelcome effect of throwing off the difficulty of encounters (players don’t have to worry about getting hurt if they have too many healing surges). Extra Magic Items and such can have the same problem, and also make other players feel left out. Action points allow players to “Do More”, which is exactly what you want to encourage the most, but does it with a limited, consumable, resource (one that doesn’t provide permanent changes to the character itself).</blockquote>

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